Will people ever learn?

Steve Martin is the latest celebrity to tweet, then delete.

On Friday night, the actor tweeted to his followers that they should "submit your grammar here." When one user asked, "Is this how you spell lasonia?" Martin responded, "It depends. Are you in an African-American neighborhood or at an Italian restaurant?"

He quickly deleted the offensive tweet, and later tweeted: "I did apologize. But again, a second later I realized what an offensive thing I'd done. Deep bow."

Martin also acknowledged the tweet was "highly inappropriate."

http://www.usatoday.com/s...t/4181195/

Dude just got on a roll and forgot the brakes. This kind of reminds me of a docu I just watched and part of it was on African-American names, he wasn't wrong in his fact, but yeah, it's a sensative subject that not all people will appreciate. But it's Steve, I'm assuming it'll blow over pretty fast.

I completely forgot about him...

"Steve Martin?? oh yeah, that guy..., cheesy comedies, Chevy Chase kind of guy, right?"

most blatantly racist and nasty comment since Mel Gibson's 2006-2010 rants...

morningsong said:

Dude just got on a roll and forgot the brakes. This kind of reminds me of a docu I just watched and part of it was on African-American names, he wasn't wrong in his fact, but yeah, it's a sensative subject that not all people will appreciate. But it's Steve, I'm assuming it'll blow over pretty fast.

And remember this came in the heels of Justine Sacco's even more disgusting racist tweet. Steve's was an easier target.

I certainly don't know Steve, but this strikes me as more sloppy than anything else; and a miscalculation of the medium. In a comedy club, for example, Steve on stage, and the audience -- likely a multiracial one -- in their seats, this joke would be really successful. ('cause it's clever. ) He'd know them. They'd know him. And they could appreciate his tone, the spontaneity of the quip, the absence of malice, and the intimacy that had been cultivated. Twitter, however, is more like taking the Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park -- and yelling things to anyone in earshot. One has to understand that nuance.

I hope this doesn't cause him much blues. He seems a good guy.

[Edited 12/23/13 16:56pm]

Lammastide said:

I certainly don't know Steve, but this strikes me as more sloppy than anything else; and a miscalculation of the medium. In a comedy club, for example, Steve on stage, and audience -- likely a multiracial one -- in their seats, this joke would be really successful. He'd know them. They'd know him. And they could appreciate his tone, the spontaneity of the quip, and the intimacy that had been cultivated. Twitter, however, is more like taking the Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park -- and yelling things to anyone in earshot. One has to understand that nuance.

I hope this doesn't cause him much blues. He seems a good guy.

I hope not either. I'm sure this will blow over. I mean it's not really a big news headline so I'm sure within a week, people will move on without mentioning it.

I feel kinda dumb, but... I don't really get the joke....

nobody said shit.

....trust me...he's more than safe

NoVideo said:

I feel kinda dumb, but... I don't really get the joke....

Me, neither. It can be a rather complicated word to spell for anyone. I'm surprised I know how to spell it because I hate lasagna.

Lammastide said:

The man was born a poor black child, give him a break!

NDRU said:

The man was born a poor black child, give him a break!

Damn right! And Steve even admitted that he is The Jerk.

Brendan said:

JoeTyler said:

AndrePatrone said:

nobody said shit.

....trust me...he's more than safe

NDRU said:

The man was born a poor black child, give him a break!

THANK YOU!

Lammastide said:

I certainly don't know Steve, but this strikes me as more sloppy than anything else; and a miscalculation of the medium. In a comedy club, for example, Steve on stage, and the audience -- likely a multiracial one -- in their seats, this joke would be really successful. ('cause it's clever. ) He'd know them. They'd know him. And they could appreciate his tone, the spontaneity of the quip, the absence of malice, and the intimacy that had been cultivated. Twitter, however, is more like taking the Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park -- and yelling things to anyone in earshot. One has to understand that nuance.

I hope this doesn't cause him much blues. He seems a good guy.

[Edited 12/23/13 16:56pm]

Signed.

sounds like he was just making jokes as usual and then realized that, if people could take offense, they would

AndrePatrone said:

nobody said shit.

....trust me...he's more than safe

This movie was hilarious

NDRU said:

NoVideo said:

I feel kinda dumb, but... I don't really get the joke....

I didn't either. Here is Steve talking about it on his website.

"I was going along fine when someone wrote, “How do you spell “lasonia?” I wrote: “It depends if you are in an African American neighborhood or an Italian restaurant.” I knew of the name Lasonia. I did not make it up, nor do I find it funny. So to me the answer was either Lasonia (with a capital), or Lasagna, depending on what you meant. That they sounded alike in this rare and particular context struck me as funny. That was the joke. When the tweet went out, I saw some negative comments and immediately deleted the tweet and apologized. I gathered the perception was that I was making fun of African American names. Later, thinking it over, I realized the tweet was irresponsible, and made a fuller apology on Twitter.

Then, Salon.com reported on the story and changed the wording of the tweet. They wrote: “It depends if you are in an African American restaurant or an Italian restaurant.” Clearly, this misquote implies that an African American restaurant can’t spell “lasagna” on the menu. And my name was attached to the misquoted tweet. Other websites, including TMZ.com picked up this incorrect version and for the next four days, and more, it continued to spread and I couldn’t get out of hell.

When the error was fixed, neither TMZ nor Salon footnoted it. However, one website which had jumped on me harshly, Twitchy.com, made a generous apology:

“The original version of this post stated that Martin’s tweet denigrated the spelling ability of people who live in African American neighborhoods. A more likely explanation is that he was referencing the tendency of some African Americans to use names that include the prefix “La.” If we misinterpreted his joke (and we think we probably did), we apologize.”

I felt a little better, but not a lot."

V10LETBLUES said:

NoVideo said:

I feel kinda dumb, but... I don't really get the joke....

I didn't either. Here is Steve talking about it on his website.

"I was going along fine when someone wrote, “How do you spell “lasonia?” I wrote: “It depends if you are in an African American neighborhood or an Italian restaurant.” I knew of the name Lasonia. I did not make it up, nor do I find it funny. So to me the answer was either Lasonia (with a capital), or Lasagna, depending on what you meant. That they sounded alike in this rare and particular context struck me as funny. That was the joke. When the tweet went out, I saw some negative comments and immediately deleted the tweet and apologized. I gathered the perception was that I was making fun of African American names. Later, thinking it over, I realized the tweet was irresponsible, and made a fuller apology on Twitter.

Then, Salon.com reported on the story and changed the wording of the tweet. They wrote: “It depends if you are in an African American restaurant or an Italian restaurant.” Clearly, this misquote implies that an African American restaurant can’t spell “lasagna” on the menu. And my name was attached to the misquoted tweet. Other websites, including TMZ.com picked up this incorrect version and for the next four days, and more, it continued to spread and I couldn’t get out of hell.

When the error was fixed, neither TMZ nor Salon footnoted it. However, one website which had jumped on me harshly, Twitchy.com, made a generous apology:

“The original version of this post stated that Martin’s tweet denigrated the spelling ability of people who live in African American neighborhoods. A more likely explanation is that he was referencing the tendency of some African Americans to use names that include the prefix “La.” If we misinterpreted his joke (and we think we probably did), we apologize.”

I felt a little better, but not a lot."

Black Twitter saw "African American" and just that and went nuts.

Lammastide said:

I certainly don't know Steve, but this strikes me as more sloppy than anything else; and a miscalculation of the medium. In a comedy club, for example, Steve on stage, and the audience -- likely a multiracial one -- in their seats, this joke would be really successful. ('cause it's clever. ) He'd know them. They'd know him. And they could appreciate his tone, the spontaneity of the quip, the absence of malice, and the intimacy that had been cultivated. Twitter, however, is more like taking the Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park -- and yelling things to anyone in earshot. One has to understand that nuance.

I hope this doesn't cause him much blues. He seems a good guy.

[Edited 12/23/13 16:56pm]

Very well said. I must admit, I laughed out loud as soon as I read it!

And "Bringing Down the House" was rather High-Larious!

I don't know Steve Martin or anything, so this is more of a general observation than a criticism of him, but what is with white people and black names? A white co-worker of mine (who definitely is racist) was just talking about how ridiculous the names are in the black area of our city. First, it's not like it's not like it's anything new for cultures to have their own set of names. But more importantly, I wanted to be like, sorry, dude, your German ancestors came up with the name Brünhilde. So let's not throw stones here...

Arbwyth said:

morningsong said:

Arbwyth said:

I don't know Steve Martin or anything, so this is more of a general observation than a criticism of him, but what is with white people and black names? A white co-worker of mine (who definitely is racist) was just talking about how ridiculous the names are in the black area of our city. First, it's not like it's not like it's anything new for cultures to have their own set of names. But more importantly, I wanted to be like, sorry, dude, your German ancestors came up with the name Brünhilde. So let's not throw stones here...

Anything and everything that black people do, say, eat or drink is wrong and they should be highly ashamed of themselves and need to flog themselves constantly for it.

As far as Steve Martin goes personally I don't fault him in this case. It's been stated here his introduction to the broad audience is the movie The Jerk, which is somewhat based on a bit of his standup which opens with him saying I was born a poor black child. In fact the entire movie is on youtube, it's considered a classic. At this point classifying him as a racist over a silly comment because others just like brewing and watching a mob mentality run wild is really sad and I hope it gets squashed quickly because it just stupid and pointless.

OK, good, so I'm not going crazy in noticing it, then! I don't know enough about Steve Martin to put his remarks in context, but he did give a good apology rather than the usual non-apology that celebrities do. It's just like this sudden trend in my life of hearing weird unsolicited commentary about black names.

Arbwyth said:

I don't know Steve Martin or anything, so this is more of a general observation than a criticism of him, but what is with white people and black names? A white co-worker of mine (who definitely is racist) was just talking about how ridiculous the names are in the black area of our city. First, it's not like it's not like it's anything new for cultures to have their own set of names. But more importantly, I wanted to be like, sorry, dude, your German ancestors came up with the name Brünhilde. So let's not throw stones here...

Haha....I wish you were able to say it to his face,

As for Steve, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.